Where do you think when you think of yourself?

No, not where ARE you when you think of yourself. Where does it happen? What part of the brain? This question has become very important to the world of cognitive neuroscience recently. We used to think of self-reflection as taking place only in the prefrontal cortex. This would mean that only animals with a well-developed prefrontal cortex would be capable of self-reflection. However, another brain area has recently been implicated in self-reflection, the insula.
The insula is hot in neuroscience right now. It’s a weird little bit of your brain, a bit of cortex that is actually INSIDE the rest of your cortex. We all know that the human brain is full of folds, known as sulci. One of the most obvious sulci is the lateral sulcus, located between the frontal lob and the termporal lobe, just above your ears:

In this picture, your face is on the left side of the screen. That bottom bulge which would occur around your ears is the temporal lobe, which is separated from the base of the brain by the lateral sulcus.
So what does this have to do with the insula? Well the insula is INSIDE the lateral sulcus. It’s very deep, and on a human brain you can actually pry it open pretty easily. Inside the lateral sulcus are these clear stripes of cortex, your insula.

There it is all pried apart so you can see it.
The insula has gotten a lot of attention recently. It first appeared on Sci’s radar when a study came out in which smokers with lesions of the anterior (front) insula suddenly lost all urge to smoke. It’s also known to be involved in social thinking. But now a new study has come out, showing that it also plays a role in self-reflection.
Modinos et al. “Activation of anterior insula during self-reflection” PLoS ONE, Feb. 2009.

The Basics of Menopause and Hormone Therapy III: Cognitive Consequences

This is the third part in an overview of menopause and hormone therapy. Parts one and two are here and here. This time around I describe changes in cognitive and behavioral profiles for women and animal models of menopause. I may decide to expand on a handful of studies at a later date, but for now I wanted to provide a very brief overview of human studies, problems inherent to human studies, and animal studies. I think the next part of this series will focus on the quality of our animal models and what they have to tell us. But for now, anyone who is interested in these issues knows where to start digging!
Granted, some of the info in this series is a bit dated, but I’ll do future posts to expand on recent findings. I also posted a follow-up on factors to consider when evaluating hormone therapy use and comparing new findings to “common wisdom”.

Face Blindness and a single gene flaw

Unfortunately I’m stuck with the press release on this one, my government-access VPN doesn’t seem good enough to get me this article at home. Face blindness, or prosopagnosia, is a condition where a person is unable to recognize another person by their face and must rely on other features, such as gait, hair, voice, or other features.

How Exactly Do Infant Brains Wire Themselves For Speech, Anyway?

We seem to have a plethora of posts pertaining to Pure Pedantry’s penchant for peroratory punditry. I found a recent press release that I fear will only encourage him.

And when you’re in your bigger room…

…you might not know what to do
you might have to think of
how you got started
sittin’ in your little room
–The White Stripes